PARIS — With Europe in crisis, much of the EU is looking to its de facto leaders, French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for answers on how to fix the bloc and fend off a post-Brexit breakup.

But if polls are to be trusted, at least one half of that duo could be out of power by the time serious talks on EU reform begin.

Hollande is as unpopular as ever, and may well not run for re-election. If he does, all current surveys suggest he would be knocked out in round one of a presidential election, opening the way for a center-right president in 2017.

Which means the burden of imagining the EU's future would fall to one of Hollande's conservative rivals: Nicolas Sarkozy, Alain Juppé, François Fillon or Bruno Le Maire — the top four contenders in a primary to elect the center-right presidential candidate.

How does France's conservative establishment see the bloc's future? In a nutshell: smaller, narrower, weaker and more national.

After a seminar at Les Républicains (LR) party headquarters this week, Sarkozy spelled out five points for EU reform that one of his backers said were "totally consensual" (never mind that Le Maire and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, also a candidate, did not bother to show up and brainstorm).

"In ten months [the job of fixing Europe] will be up to us." — Nicolas Sarkozy

The Républicain plan en bref: 1) the EU should reform Schengen, so each country has more control over its borders; 2) Europe should get its own version of the International Monetary Fund, to avoid being "on its knees before the United States"; 3) the European Commission should write even fewer laws; 4) national parliaments should be able to veto them all; and, 5) Europe's "never-ending" expansion should, well, end.

Beyond those bullet points, however, the consensus fades. Each contender for the nomination has his or her own custom-built plan for the EU's future. And now that Brexit has made the EU a fashionable topic again after a long period during which it took a back seat to France's diminished economic stature, all are determined to hawk their wares as loudly as possible.

Fixing Europe is 'up to us'

Take Sarkozy. Ostensibly, the LR party chief should stick to the five points, since he is not an official primary candidate. But, at a meeting with French voters in London Wednesday, he went far beyond the party line, arguing for deep changes and a starring role for France. "In ten months," he said, referring to France's presidential election, "[the job of fixing Europe] will be up to us."

How? Via a rapid treaty change — an option rejected Wednesday by EU leaders — and a brand-new eurozone presidency that would switch back and forth between France and Germany, he said, "because they represent half of the eurozone's economic activity." And the other members of the single currency? "Too bad if I anger the small countries!" Le Figaro cited him as saying.

There is more. While Sarkozy treads carefully due to his role as party chief, he is road-testing more radical ideas via others, notably LR vice president Laurent Wauquiez. At the top of this B-list is killing off the European Commission.

"We can no longer allow an administrative body to make legislative proposals," Wauquiez told the National Assembly Tuesday. The idea provoked cries of "populist!" and a stern rebuke from Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls. But it was no throwaway. A day earlier another Sarkozy compadre, Guillaume Larrivé, was giving it airtime on TV, saying the Commission needed to be replaced with a "Secretariat of Nations."

If the idea sticks, Sarkozy may well snatch it up for himself.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there is Juppé. Currently favored to win the November Républicain primary, and then go on to become president, the former PM has carved out a Europhile niche for himself in an increasingly Euroskeptic party.

"My referendum is the exact opposite of the one being proposed by David Cameron." — Bruno Le Maire, former agriculture minister

On June 27, he wrote on his blog that Europe needed to get more political, while France should "merge [its] capacities with the countries with whom we share a worldview and civilizational values." A treaty change was necessary, he argued, and so was an EU-wide referendum to approve it. But neither would happen before France regained credibility as an economic force in Berlin's eyes.

In other words, under Juppé the EU would be in for more of the same.

On the side of ex-prime minister Fillon, the tone is more Euroskeptic. The fourth man in the race, behind Sarkozy, Juppé and Le Maire, Fillon wants to narrow the EU's legislative scope drastically.

In the future, he wrote in an op-ed for Le Monde, "I want Europe to intervene in a limited number of areas, and when it has an explicit mandate from nations and peoples... subsidiarity and flexibility would take precedence over today's uniformity."

Finally, there is Le Maire, the former agriculture minister who told POLITICO in May that France needed a referendum of its own to reset its troubled relationship with the EU. Like David Cameron's failed gamble? Or Marine Le Pen's "Frexit" pledge? Not at all.

"My referendum is the exact opposite of the one being proposed by David Cameron," Le Maire said. His would be a "positive" plebiscite, with no option of leaving the EU, only signing on to a package of reforms. If it failed, no problem, because his referendum would be consultative, or non-binding for the government.

Campaigning for the French Right's nomination will start in earnest in September. Between now and then, expect more jockeying at the EU's expense.